


But It's Alright

by NervousAsexual



Series: Whumptober 2020 [23]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Exhaustion, Only slight canon divergence, basically I took the Homeworlds comic and swapped out his dad for his sister, because to heck with dads, did I name a whump fic after my favorite Redbone song?, everyone knows sisters are superior, spoilers for Dossier: Archangel, you're damn right i did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27167335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: It's been six days since he slept. Garrus Vakarian is taking as many mercs down with him as he can.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960987
Kudos: 7
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	But It's Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober #23--exhaustion

On day six, early in the morning, he misses his first shot.

It's only a near-miss; the vorcha he was aiming at shrieks and runs back to the barricade. He struggles to climb back over but through the scope there's clearly six or seven Blood Clans pushing him back. The second shot hits home.

_Damn it, Vakarian._

They're going to rush the bridge now. He knows that. Even if the Blood Clan doesn't put two and two together they're working with the Blue Suns now, and somebody there will say to them, "You idiots, Archangel doesn't give warning shots."

Garrus rests the rifle against the balcony railing and takes a moment to breathe.

It's been six days and this is the first shot to miss. That's something, he tells himself. It's fine. He made it six days. Six days without rest or break. Six days of eating military rations straight from the tube. Six days of systematically slaughtering every scumbag to try and cross the bridge. He wonders if he'll make it to day seven.

This breather was a terrible idea. He sits back on his heels and tries to focus on watching the action across the way but now that he's stopped it's damned hard to start again. His brain's gotten a taste of not pushing blindly forward and now it's addicted.

Movement at the barricade. More Blood Pack. A krogan appears at the top of the battlement and gestures violently at him. Garrus is admittedly not familiar with obscene krogan gestures, so he opts to shoot the krogan in the face.

As the krogan falls back a whole pack of varren come charging over. He doesn't stop to count; he's too busy lining up shots that will take down several at a time because if his rifle overheats he's in even deeper trouble than he was yesterday. One thing about varren--they're easy enough to snipe. They run together and none of them bob or weave or shoot back. A child could make these shots. Garrus wonders if they're probing for weaknesses or if Garm's just running low on grunts.

The last varren falls and there's a lull. He watches through the scope, trying to figure out what they're doing back there, but even with everyone shouting he can't make out words at this range. Without taking his eyes from the barricade he feels around on the floor beside him until he finds a ration tube and rips it open with his teeth.

This is fine. Everything's fine.

Sure, he's going to die here, but he's going to do a little more street cleaning first.

The ration's so dry it's hard to swallow. There's more movement at the barricade. Mix of races this time. New recruits? But no, when he does a quick survey he can't identify any gang colors. Must be mercs. Maybe he ought to thank the gangs for sending such easy targets. He takes the shot and takes it again and sends one through a merc's neck and into the leg of the human behind him.

"Sorry," he mumbles to the human. "Come back to you."

He gets one just as he reaches the house and two more behind him and then his weapon overheats. He switches to the assault rifle and gets another one. _One, two, three, four, five, six_...

_Weren't there eight of them?_ he wonders, just as the asari reaches the top of the stairs and shoots him in the back.

It would probably hurt if he weren't floating just outside of his body, too tired to shout, and so he has the wherewithal to spatter her guts all over the landing before turning and aiming for the human he wounded. Poor guy's crawled halfway back to the barricade already.

Briefly he toys with the idea of letting him go. There's no way the merc is going to be fighting for a while and at this range he's not sure he can hit him with the assault rifle. He doesn't want to give the gangs any more reason to think he's slipping...

But he looks at the blood pouring from the man's leg and figures he might as well have pity on the guy. He takes the sniper rifle, still warm, and stops him from bleeding to death.

Nobody comes over the wall for a moment and he takes advantage of the lull to take stock of his wound. His armor kept the shot from penetrating too deeply; it's not worth wasting a medigel on. He can feel it starting to hurt, though, so he gulps down a few painkillers and then sinks down against the support column.

His head is pounding and it would be so easy to just close his eyes and forget all about this. Pretend for a minute that he's back on the Normandy with Shepard and Liara and...

Nope. Eyes getting heavy. He rolls his head and shoulders a few times and checks with the scope for any further movement. Nothing. It's a shame none of the others are left. Talking with them, even about nothing, about some cute asari one of them got a dance from at Afterlife or whose turn it is to scrub the latrine, is enough to keep him awake. Thinking of them brings a smile to his face that even remembering the shrouded bodies in back can't entirely erase.

_Sit tight, guys. Be with you soon._

Still nothing from the barricade, which should probably worry him except that he doesn't have the energy for that now. It's alright. It's all perfectly fine.

And there go his eyes again.

Maybe it's the wound, maybe it's the exhaustion, maybe it's something in the rations, but he's never felt so alone in the universe before. Team dead, Sidonis gone--out of his reach forever now--Shepard dead, her team scattered, somehow he's managed to lose everything good that ever happened to him.

_Well_ , he thinks, switching on his comm, _there is one thing._

It rings and rings as he waits for the gangs to make their next move and he's just about to give up when he hears her say, "Hello?"

"Hey, Solana," he says. "Busy?"

His sister is quiet for a moment. "Garrus? Ah, no. I guess not."

"Nothing much." He glances down at the rifle in his arms. "Getting a little target practice in. How've you been? I feel like I don't see you much any more."

She gives that sardonic snort they both inherited from their mother. "It's only been, what, three years?"

Something like that. The numbers are getting muddled up in his head, but he hasn't seen her since before he left C-Sec. "I'm sorry about that. I've missed you."

"Yeah, well. I suppose I've missed you too." In the background he can hear music playing. "The old man does too."

"Dad? Miss me? That's a good one."

She says nothing but he can picture her shaking her head like he only saw her yesterday.

"How's the merc life suiting you?"

"Actually, it didn't. I'm not freelance anymore. Couldn't take the hours. I'm in C-Sec now."

"Really?" He watches some kind of flurry of activity beyond the barricade. "Just like the old man always wanted."

"Something like that. He'd like it a lot better if I was out on patrol and not checking luggage for contraband on Zakera Point."

"He should be glad you didn't abandon your post to jump on the first human ship you saw after a rogue specter."

"We can't all disappoint him with your level of showmanship." They are both quiet for a moment. "Listen, Garrus. I was sorry to hear about Shepard."

Somebody starts to climb the barricade. He starts to raise his rifle but whoever it is gets pulled back. "She was a good friend."

"So I heard."

More silence.

"What did you want to talk about?" Solana says at last. "I'm assuming you didn't just call to hear my voice."

"I did, actually. Needed somebody to chat with. Make sure I'm not losing my mind."

"At target practice?"

"Yeah. At target practice."

"Well, I hope I'm helping."

"Very much so." More movement, then a wave of mercs pouring over the barricade. "Listen, I'm going to have to let you go. But thanks for talking with me."

"We'll have to do it again sometime."

He starts to respond but a barrage of rockets shakes the house and he only just manages to pull himself together in time to snipe the vorcha with the launcher. The rest of them--there's too many to snipe. He swaps out the rifles again.

For a moment he thinks he's lost the call but finally Solana says, "Sounds like you've got some company."

He gets three of the mercs down, every other shot going astray or bouncing off armor. He ejects the heat clip and keeps shooting.

"I'll let you go. Good luck with the 'target practice.' I, uh, I love you, Garrus."

Some of the mercs are tripping over their fallen comrades but the other just keep going. He throws a grenade. It's all he's got. "You too."

"And Garrus?"

He burns up another clip. "Yeah?"

"Come visit me some time."

He's not sure what to say until he hefts up the sniper rifle again and looks through the scope at the three mercs who just came over the barricade.

"Yeah," he said, eyes fixed on the red and white emblem on the middle one's chest. "I'll do that."

It's alright. He held out six days with no sleep. Not terrible. And if he's going to die, it's nice to die hallucinating Shepard. It's not until the gunship chews up his face and shoulder that it occurs to him he might not be dreaming.

He stumbles back, directly into the rocketfire.

_Oh good, now I get to sleep,_ he thinks in the last few moments he can think at all.


End file.
